SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — First impressions are everything to baseball scouts. They watch and evaluate thousands of players every year. They are always looking for something that stands out.

But scouts can make their own strong initial impressions on players, too. And Matt Cain has a clear recollection of the first time Giants scout Lee Elder walked into his suburban Memphis home.

“I remember staring at that big-ass Yankee World Series ring on your hand,” Cain often tells him.

“Now I own a couple more of those big-ass World Series rings, thanks to you,” Elder shoots back.

Cain and Elder are a rare pair. It’s not too often that a pitcher can walk onto the field in spring training, still in the same organization 14 years after being drafted, see the scout that signed him leaning against the dugout rail, his mouth wadded up with sunflower seeds, and wave.

The scout-player relationship isn’t what it once was. Scouts still beat the bushes and unearth gems, but they don’t carry fat billfolds in their back pockets and sign players on the spot. The number of showcases, tournaments, scouts and cross-checkers makes it impossible to keep a talented hitter or power arm submerged for long.

And the decision to draft a player is now an organizationwide affair. Teams still list “signing scouts,” but that amounts to a symbolic tip of the wide-brimmed hat. If Texas is your region, and your organization takes a kid out of Abilene Christian, then you’re the signing scout — even if you weren’t in the room when the actual ink hit the contract.

Even in the rare instance when a scout and player maintain their relationship, there are trades and free agency and nontendered contracts. The days of Robin Yount, Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn, who played their entire careers for one team, are long gone.

There aren’t many scouts who become titans like George Genovese, who counted Bobby Bonds, Gary Matthews, Garry Maddox, George Foster, Jack Clark, Chili Davis, Dave Kingman, Royce Clayton and Matt Williams among the 44 players he signed to reach the major leagues.

Genovese, who died in November at the age of 93, organized travel ball teams before they became widespread, and furnished equipment to players who didn’t have any of their own. Matthews told MLB.com that Genovese gave him his first pair of spikes, and he stayed in touch with him throughout their lives.

“I don’t know if we have enough time to go over all the stuff that George Genovese has done, not just for me, but also for a lot of players, from George Foster to Dave Kingman,” Matthews told MLB.com. “He’s a big reason why I was in the major leagues, to be quite frank. He’d stick by you and work out with you. He has a special place in my heart.”

The amateur ranks are a different world now. Most scouts will write up players and advocate for the ones they like. They might even stand up and passionately campaign, as Giants cross-checker Doug Mapson once did for a closed-stanced first baseman with an aluminum-bat swing out of the University of Texas named Brandon Belt.

But once the players sign, the scouts scatter to the next showcase or high school game. They aren’t there to see the stalk break through or the fruit set.

For many players, though, there is no forgetting that tingle of anticipation the first time they heard that a professional baseball scout had come to watch them, or the first time they shook someone’s hand and bumped a knuckle against one of those big-ass rings. There is no forgetting the first person in baseball who believed in your talent.

Especially when nobody else did.

* * *

Former Giants catcher Bengie Molina was one of those players.

Scouts passed him over twice in the draft. At Arizona Western College, he was a pitcher, outfielder and occasional shortstop who had a quick bat, but his foot speed could be timed with a sundial instead of a stopwatch.

After returning home to Vega Alta, Puerto Rico, and playing in a few semipro games for a local club, he quit the sport he loved with one symbolic act. He knotted the laces of his cleats together and flung them high in the tangled power lines.

But a scout from the Angels, Ray Poitevint, happened to see Molina line a base hit during that last semipro game. And Poitevint happened to be sitting next to Gladys Matta, Bengie’s mother and the family matriarch. Poitevint had come to Vega Alta to work out Bengie’s younger brother, Jose, a catcher with a strong throwing arm. He agreed to take a look at Bengie, too.

Poitevint had seen enough players overcome marginal tools. The old scout once signed a Hall of Famer, Eddie Murray, but he was much prouder of another signee, Enos Cabell, who made it to the big leagues through force of will and fashioned a respectable career.

“Scouts are trained to look for flaws, and when they see one, they’ll just pass and go to the next guy,” Poitevint said. “We’re always looking for perfection.”

So Bengie borrowed a pair of Jose’s cleats. He put on a tremendous round of batting practice. And when Poitevint asked him to get into a crouch and make a few throws to second base, he did so without hesitation — even though he’d never caught before.

Four days later, he was on a plane to the Angels’ minor league complex in Arizona. His bonus check, after taxes, was less than $800. He ended up playing a dozen seasons in the big leagues, winning two Gold Gloves, playing in two World Series and winning one with the 2002 Angels while counting Jose as one of his teammates. He also became the first of the three Molina brothers to reach the majors. The siblings, including Yadier, who is a fixture with the St. Louis Cardinals, are the only trio of brothers in major league history to each own a World Series ring.

It wouldn’t have gotten started without a pair of borrowed cleats and a scout who was willing to look past a flaw.

“I would have signed for nothing,” Bengie Molina said. “I would have signed for nothing.”

While Bengie and Jose Molina prepared to play in that 2002 World Series, a skinny 11-year-old kid was hand-painting signs in the Anaheim parking lot and couldn’t believe that he would get to see his Angels in the Fall Classic.

* * *

Matt Duffy lived and breathed baseball, and he worked hard at it. He played at Long Beach State, where he hit .244 as a freshman, .266 as a sophomore and .244 in a miserable junior year that began with an intestinal ailment, causing him to shed 20 pounds that he couldn’t afford to lose. Of his 129 collegiate hits, 116 were singles. Over three collegiate seasons and 501 at-bats, he didn’t hit a single home run.

The Angels didn’t even bother to send him a draft questionnaire.

Scouts knew about him because he had taken what was supposed to be a temporary assignment with Orleans in the Cape Cod League and ran with it, hitting everything in sight after clicking with batting coach Benny Craig.

Giants scout Brad Cameron knew Duffy long before that. He had reports on him going back to Lakewood High School, and he knew the kid had the arm, strength and range to play shortstop.

“All four of our scouts who saw him in the Cape knew what he could do,” Cameron said. “I had him even a little higher than where we took him, in the 18th round (in 2012). We all agreed he could play shortstop, he had good actions and he squared up fastballs. He never missed a fastball, and that was the truth.”

Cameron laughed when he considered Duffy’s amazing season in 2015, when he had the most RBIs (77) by a Giants rookie since Dave Kingman in 1972 and the most extra-base hits by a Giants rookie since Chili Davis in 1982. If not for the Cubs’ Kris Bryant, Duffy would’ve been the NL Rookie of the Year.

“If you think about it, we kind of whiffed, too,” Cameron said. “I mean, based on what he’s doing now. … I didn’t evaluate him as a plus hitter and average power guy. We had him as a utility player.”

At the time, what most struck Cameron about Duffy was his extreme eagerness to sign — as eager as any draftee he could remember. Duffy signed two days after the draft, only because that’s how long it took Cameron to drive over a contract.

Their relationship didn’t end there. Duffy and Cameron will meet up at least once every offseason for lunch or dinner. And Duffy was a surprise guest when Cameron celebrated his 50th birthday with a party in San Francisco in September.

“I really appreciated his faith in me and fighting for me,” Duffy said. “Because at that point in the draft, it’s about, ‘How adamant is a scout about their guy?’ I know with the year I had my junior year, he didn’t have to stick to his guns, but he did.”

Said Cameron: “I’m so proud of him and happy for his family. To be able to walk into a house and give them the opportunity to fulfill someone’s dreams, one they’ve had since they were 5 years old, is an awesome feeling, and I love it.”

* * *

Those are the moments that make up for so many others: the long drives and rainouts, the two-star hotel rooms with scratchy blankets, making dinner from the offerings at a gas station.

Back in 2001, Elder had the ample Southern territory that included Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle. Another scout had been reassigned, and GM Brian Sabean asked him to take on Tennessee, too. Elder hadn’t the first idea about draft prospects in the state, so he asked another scout with the Reds to toss him a couple of names.

He got one, a high school pitcher at Houston High, outside Memphis, who was committed to attend South Carolina but was worth a look. His name was Conor Lalor. And Collierville happened to be playing in a tournament in Mountain Brook, Alabama, a two-hour drive away.

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” said Elder, who hustled to his car. “So I get there and talk to the coach, and Lalor has the flu — didn’t make the trip.”

Elder asked for other names. The coach told him he had a shortstop and a catcher. Elder asked if he had any other pitchers.

“And he says to me, ‘Well, the guy going tonight is a 17-year-old, but he’s a senior, and he’s got a partial ride to Memphis State,’ ” Elder said. “That was Cain, and I was the only one there. I was the only scout in the stands.

“And, shoot, after three innings I called up (Giants vice president Dick) Tidrow and said, ‘I just saw the quickest arm I’ve seen on a high school kid yet.’ “

Cain threw 88 mph that day. But every time he took the mound in his senior year, his velocity ticked up. When the draft arrived, he was a known commodity, and evaluators expected him to go in the first couple of rounds. The Giants had more reports on him than anyone else. He lasted until their selection at 25th overall.

Fourteen years later, Elder and Cain are lasting together still.

“Usually you don’t stumble onto guys like that, someone who turns out to be a bulldog of your staff,” Elder said. “It’s great that both of us have been together the whole time. It’s been a great relationship.”